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Written by EBONY D’ARCY.
A BAN on burn off notification signs over the off-season will mean more false alarms and wasted time for local CFA units, according to Bright CFA captain Paul Mansfield.
Mr Mansfield said a move by VicRoads to ban the replacement of fire danger period signs with burn off notification information during the off season would prove a time waster.
"With those signs in place people know to register their burn offs and we don’t waste our time going out to false alarms," he said.
"Now VicRoads tells us we can’t put them up, their reason being there’s too much signage on the road.
"We’re just replacing the fire danger signs with burn off notification signs, not putting up new ones."
Mr Mansfield said the signs were vital to prevent wasted time and resources when people were burning off over the cooler months.
"These signs have made a huge difference over the last couple of years in the number of false alarms we’ve been called out to," he said.
"There’s something like a 65 per cent reduction in false alarms in Alpine since those signs went up."
Region 24 operations officer Nigel Parsons said the signs, which were in place from April 2007 to August 2007, resulted in a significant decrease in calls to burn offs.
"We had a significant increase in people reporting burn offs, and a significant decrease in calls to burn offs," he said.
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